Instagram cuts off image feature with rival Twitter

Rivalry erupted into war when Instagram made sure its images couldn’t be seen properly on Twitter.

The photo-sharing website pulled the plug on a key feature, ensuring pictures appeared distorted or badly cropped.

The relationship between the two platforms has deteriorated since Facebook bought Instagram earlier this year.

The move is a sign the new owner no longer wants arch rival Twitter capitalising on the millions of photos hosted by Instagram every day.

‘Instagram doesn’t want to play nice with Twitter any more,’ one technology website said.

Chief executive Kevin Systrom said his site would still remain integrated with Twitter but users would now be directed where ‘the content lives originally’ to see the image correctly. ‘Where do you go to interact with an image?’ he added. ‘We want that to be instagram.com because that’s a better user experience.’

The move appears to be a tit-for-tat retaliation after Twitter cut off an important ‘find my Twitter friends’ feature on Instagram in the summer.

But Mr Systrom said: ‘This decision is definitely coming from me. This is not a case of Facebook putting some sort of policy on Instagram.

‘And this isn’t a consequence of us getting acquired.’

Twitter has been preparing for the response by working on its own photo application, which is likely to offer a set of filters similar to those that made Instagram famous.